As a kid, I ate squirrel, rabbit and other small game. I rarely ever hear anyone talk about it anymore - How many of you small game hunters eat your small game?

When I was little you had to eat small game as the depression was just waning. I still enjoy squirel, rabbit, dove, quail, and duck from time to time. Dove and duck are usually a gumbo with oysters, the rabbit and squirrel are sauted and braised with turnips in a wine sauce, and quail I split and grill. None of my friends cook any type of game but do not hesitate to clean my platters.

I eat all the squirrels and rabbits I shoot. I take several each year.

If I kill it, typically I bring it home. I have West Texas cottontails in the freezer now, and I love grilled dove breast (wrapped in pepper bacon with half a jalapeno next to the meat, and a sugar cube of Monterey Jack on the toothpick ~5 minutes before they come off the fire). I eat quail, but am not crazy about them, and haven't shot a squirrel in years, although I would love to have a place to hunt them again. I have even found a way to make jackrabbit fairly tasty.

(And I quit hunting waterfowl when they outlawed lead. Steel was too expensive then, using factory stuff was like shooting sand at them, and there was no way to handload steel.)

One of my favorite wild game dishes is hasenfeffer, which is sweet and sour rabbit. I just love to go out in the fresh snow with my favorite .22 and bag a few cotton tails. Then make a dish of hasenfeffer. I've always said that rabbit is one of the tastiest critters in the woods.

I love to hunt small game. But if I am not going to eat any, I will not hunt and kill any. I eat what I kill and would never waste any animal even if it means I stay home and don't hunt.
I love squirrels and have a great recipe. I will never kill more then needed for a meal. I don't freeze them anymore because it is too easy to forget them.

Like the others that have sounded off, I too very much enjoy eating small game. Rabbit/snowshoe and squirrel are excellent in creamy stews, and partridge and pheasant are out of this world cooked about any way, but my Ukrainian buddy turned me onto a pheasant Kiev that is now how I eat ALL mine. The fact that all pheasant shot locally are planted by F&G in WMAs and are hardly wild-raised is a bit of a downer, but you won't hear me complain about it at the table!

I love to eat waterfowl as well, and good thing, since I hunt them around 100 days a year. Puddlers eat best of course over divers or--gulp--seaducks, and of those, best of all are teal, woodies, mallards and sometimes a black duck. As long as he's decided he's not a fan of seafood. I like to slice the breasted filets cross-wise, then bread with seasoned breadcrumbs. Into a pan for a quick fry on each side in olive oil, and you're good to go with rice or pasta or between two slices of bread and a bit of tomato and mayo. Just don't overcook!

Great to hear about some other small game hunters here!

Cheers,

KG

Have always enjoyed rabbit and squirrel hunting. We have a few grouse here as well. All go into the pot and make fine meals.

I surly do. I love to hunt squirrel. I have about 10 acres of pecan trees that draw squirrels like crap draws flies. The squirrels I shoot out of thoes trees are butter fat and tasty. Opening day of dove season here is a big deal, ditto on eating dove, I wrap a strip of bacon around a breast side shake in a seafood breader mix and deep fry, serve with some home made dipping sauces. Quail, rabbit, eat them all.

The only small game I really get into hunting, other than a little bit of dove hunting, is for cottontails and jackrabbits.

The dove we do with the bacon and jalapeno, the cottontail we chicken fry, and the jackrabbit, we cook several ways along with grinding it and making sausage.

I love squirrel and rabbit. I don't get to hunt rabbits much except when I go home to Indiana for the holidays but they sure are good. Love to eat quail, pheasant, and doves also.

I prefer hunting rabbit or squirrel to hunting deer. Of course I eat whatever I kill or I give it to someone who will eat it promptly. Good fun, good exercise, good food: What's not to like? The reason that I prefer hunting small game to hunting deer is that the fun ends when that big animal hits the ground. Then the work starts with field dressing and continues through skinning, deboning, trimming and packaging for the freezer. If I kill a squirrel or rabbit, I do a few minutes of field dressing and then continue hunting. There's a bit more work to do on each critter at the end of the morning or afternoon hunt, but I've been able to do more actual hunting when I've pursued small game than when I've hunted deer. My goal is the hunting experience itself. If meat were my only goal, I'd save time, money and effort by going to the grocery store! Here in Missouri, USA, squirrel and rabbit may be legally hunted with a fascinating variety of weapons and methods: archery, air rifles, muzzle loading handguns, rifles and shotguns, as well as cartridge handguns, rifles and shotguns. I'm not sure about slingshots, atlatls or throwing sticks, but I'm not a good enough hunter to be concerned about them!

Why did you guys even start this? I am drooling now and can't wait for the seasons to open.

I haven't done a lot of small game for to many years. Getting back to it this year. I used to cut up rabbit and put in in a pot of beans and bury it in the guound on hot coals. Come back about 8 hrs later and it was great. Grouse, quail and most nay other game bird cooked in tin foil with butter and lemon pepper, next to a fire is great! Another great was to eat gamebirds is to bone them out and cut into chunks and cook them in white gravy. Pour it over toast and wow! In Alaska I used to cut up spruce grouse and cook them in rice. Damn, I have to get back to a simpler life!!!!

I like cottontails ans squirrels. My wife and I shoot them on our deer lease. Many times with 44 Magnums and Speer shot shells.
We also take quail and grouse when ever we can.

As a boy growing up in rural Alabama in the war years, small game and fish from the pond supplemented a rather meager meat diet. My uncles shot it, my grandmother cooked it and we ate it.
I haven't eaten tree rats in years but I do love quail and dove.

Will some of you critter bakers please post squirrel recipies? And, living in Central Ohio, I've heard that you should wait to hun for food until it gets colder; to kill off any undesireables (worms etc.) residing in such pot-food. Comments?

Cold weather will NOT kill off internal parasites, since body temperature is controlled by the warm-blooded host. External parasites (fleas, lice for example) are also essentially unaffected, though slowed somewhat in their activity. The only advantage of cold weather in this context is that animals weakened by disease or parasitism have a greater chance of dying off in cold weather, and thus removing themselves from possible access to you-the hunter.

quote:

Originally posted by Ohier:
Will some of you critter bakers please post squirrel recipies? And, living in Central Ohio, I've heard that you should wait to hun for food until it gets colder; to kill off any undesireables (worms etc.) residing in such pot-food. Comments?

Here in Georgia the squirrels get wolves, which are a maggot that gets under the skin. Nasty, but I've never seen them get into the meat. They say if you wait until it gets cold they aren't as prevalent. I start shootin' em as soon as the season comes in.


As far as cooking them. I like to parboil them until tender in water with an onion. I then take the pieces and roll them in seasoned flour (seasoned salt and pepper) and then brown them good in an iron skillet in some hot fat. I take the squirrel pieces out and then make a gravy with the drippings, flour, some kitchen bouquet and the water that I parboiled them in. I throw the onion away. Then put the browned squirrel pieces back in the pan and pop it in the oven on 350 for about a half hour or so until it thickens up good and the meat will fall off the bones. Also, sometimes instead of browning all of the squirrel pieces I'll take a couple of pieces after I have parboiled it and pick off the meat and then chop it up and mix it into the gravy. Serve it over mashed potatoes and biscuits. Yummy.

If they are young squirrels you can just fry them up you would rabbit or chicken, that's good too.

Andy

I have eaten 4 freshly shot ruffed grouse in the last couple of days. I cut them into strips, batter them up and deep fry, its awesome(but then again what tastes bad deep fried).

When we were first married, times were tough not much money etc. normal newly weds, Any way I set some snares behind the apartment we lived in and I cought a bunch of snowshoe hares, they were frozen in hideous shapes. I would clean them the next night after they thawed and my wife would try and cook them, this was late winter in N.MN. they were strong and stringy but they kept body and soul together..I WILL NOT eat another rabbit!!!

Interesting. Last year I had snowshoe for the first time after a fun February Maine hunt, a they were fantastic. Maybe I was just hungry after chasing after the dogs, but I doubt it.

I grew up eating squirrel, rabbit, grouse, and groundhog. At age 12, my mom drew the line when I brought the possum home though.

Don't forget frog legs and crawdads. YUM!!

I love to eat snowshoe hare,grouse ptarmigan ducks and geese. Both small and big game is a mainstay of our diet here
regards
Dan

Ate more squirrels than any other game growing up,,they can real well....

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ohier:
Will some of you critter bakers please post squirrel recipies? QUOTE]

My favorite squirrel recipe comes from Uncle Ted Nugent's "Kill it & Grill it"? I change it up a little but the procedure is the same. Parboil 2 sqiurrels until the meat comes off the bones. Debone and brown the meat chunks in butter with some diced onions. Melt a stick of butter in a crockpot and put the squirrel meat and onions in the melted butter. Add some more diced onions, diced celery and I add finely diced carrots as well. Throw some parsley flakes on top and season with garlic salt, garlic pepper and whatever seasonings you like. I add a good bit of cajun seasoning. Throw a wad of cooked white rice on top and more seasonings. Add a cup or so of white wine, a cup of water and a few shakes of worchester and/or soy sauce sauce. I add some hot sauce as well. Oh yeah, and I sometimes add some browned loose sausage, hot spicy venison sausage goes great with it. Turn the crockpot down to low and let it cook all day. Stir it all up before serving. It is wonderful. You can tailor it to your own tastes and add or omit whatever you like. It is especially good on a cold winter night.

quote:

Originally posted by Ohier:
Will some of you critter bakers please post squirrel recipies? And, living in Central Ohio, I've heard that you should wait to hun for food until it gets colder; to kill off any undesireables (worms etc.) residing in such pot-food. Comments?

Squirrels get a parasite in the summer called "warbles." It is where bot fly eggs enter the squirrel via the mouth and tunnel to the neck area and the larvea develop near the skin. There will be a big sore in the form of a festering gaping hole which can be the diameter of a pencil. When we used to go squirell hunting in the summer, we threw them away if they had warbles. Cats also get warbles.

Plinker

About the best way I've found to cook squirrels is to quarter them up and make squirrel & biscuits in the oven using a brown 'n season bag kit for chicken & biscuits. Just add water and squirrels. I usually do this to cat squirrels because they're generally too tough to fry. I do like a big fried fox squirrel though.

Ditto the frying on doves and teal. Other water fowl are either roasted or grilled.

I'll disjoint whatever critter I got that day and put it in a bowl then soak it in Tabasco sauce for about 30-40 min. Then dredge it in flour that's been seasoned with salt, pepper and either thyme or Italian Seasoning then brown all the pieces in olive oil. When they're all browned, add a half cup each of dry sherry and chicken broth, clap a lid on and let it simmer for 20-30 min or until tender. Take out the meat and thicken the sauce up. Put the game pieces on top of a bed of long grain rice and pour the gravy all over the entire thing. I've had anti-hunters come back for seconds!

Sarge
Do you soak them in full strength Tobasco or do you thin it out wth water of something else?

Dilute Tabasco sauce? Sir, that is a heathen suggestion! Be ashamed, be very, very ashamed.

Besides, it really isn't necessary. Outrageous as the idea may be, the result isn't really as hot as you might imagine. Now if you want a really hot sauce, PM me and I'll send you the recipe for Bwana Walt's Safari Hot Sauce: the HEAT of Africa!

Thanks Sarge, I just wanted to be sure I got the recipe right as I have a squirrel in the freezer and might give it a try.

i eat most of the animals i hunt(not foxes, crows, seagulls)
make hamburgers of them, i have ca. 100kg+ in burgers in the freazer from last years hunting

I try and eat everything I shoot other than fox,crow and squirrel.

I suppose I ought to try squirrel but they are so damn fiddly to skin.

Most of the squirrels shot over here get fed to ferrets or thrown away.

Leeboy

What about porcupine? Anyone ever try it? Do you think it would be worth the effort to dress one? I ask only because I see a bunch in my neck of the woods!

Back in the Olde Trapper days, porkies were considered choice eating and compared to prime pork. We don't have any this far south so I can't confirm or deny. One thing I would do is check with the local game warden about legality. Seems that once upon a time they were protected as emergency rations to only be eaten by the lost and starving, or so I heard. Sounds silly to me and probably untrue.

Porcupine varies a lot, I think. I had some years ago that was quite good, once you picked out all the #6 pellets. Just recently, I tried it again, and it was awful - gagging comes to mind. It even wrecked the veggies that were in the crock pot with it.

Now squirrel and rabbet are always pretty good!

In my state porcupines are not protected and you can hunt them all year with just a hunting license. I see them all the time, maybe I will wack one and give it a shot. Any ideas on how to prep one?

1. Indian style: Just gut the critter and throw the carcase onto the coals then cover it with more coals. When it's done, pull of the burnt hide and eat the meat.

2. Skin a young porky and spit it over a fire like a rotisserie chicken. Porky fat is like mutton or lamb so this way it drips off.

3. With an older animal, skin and bone it. Parboil it a couple of minutes to melt off the fat then make a stew with the remainder. On a big porky, this could be as much as 40 lbs so plan on a party! Just serve plenty of beer and don't tell the more squeamish guests what's in the pot.

4. If you're lacking in ideas, remember, you can make gumbo out of anything!

Well I'm going to try one. Seems like lately it's the only animal I am guranteed to see when I go into the woods.